essive generations. To express
this extraordinary system of government, it has sometimes been said
that Sparta, though governed by kings, was not a monarchy, but a
_diarchy_.

The diarchy, however, as might have been expected, was found not to
work very successfully in practice. Various dissensions and
difficulties arose; and at length, about two hundred years after the
original establishment of the two lines, the kingdom became almost
wholly disorganized. At this juncture the celebrated lawgiver Lycurgus
arose. He framed a system of laws and regulations for the kingdom,
which were immediately put in force, and resulted not only in
restoring the public affairs to order at the time, but were the means,
in the end, of raising Sparta to the highest condition of prosperity
and renown.

Lycurgus was indebted for his success in the measures which he adopted
not merely to the sagacity which he exercised in framing them, and the
energy with which he carried them into effect: he occupied personally
a very peculiar position, which afforded him great facilities for the
performance of his work. He was a member of one of the royal families,
being a younger son of one of the kings. He had an elder brother named
Polydectes. His father died suddenly, from a stab that he received in
a fray. He was not personally engaged in the fray himself as one of
the combatants, but only went into it to separate other persons, who
had by some means become involved in a sudden quarrel. In the
struggle, he received a stab from a kitchen knife, with which one of
the combatants was armed, and immediately died.

Polydectes, of course, being the eldest son, succeeded to the throne.
He, however, very soon died, leaving a wife, but no children. About
eight months after his death, however, a child was born to his widow,
and this child, according to the then received principles of
hereditary descent, was entitled to succeed his father.

As, however, at the time of Polydectes's death the child was not born,
Lycurgus, the brother, was then apparently the heir. He accordingly
assumed the government--so far as the government devolved upon the
line to which his brother had belonged--intending only to hold it in
the interim, and to give it up ultimately when the proper heir should
appear. In the mean time, the widow supposed very naturally that he
would like to retain the power permanently. She was herself also
ambitious of reigning as queen; and she accordingl